


Housed By Your Warmth

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, First Time, Missing Scene, Multi, POV Bisexual Character, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: Omera takes the bag Cara gives her, and hefts the weight of several hundred credits. “This is all from your… sport?”“Tetherbrawl,” Cara supplies.Her lips quirk upward at the corners. “Tetherbrawl.”“It’s also most of what the village scraped together. I want you to have it, if I don’t make it back.” Omera’s eyes fix on her at once, but Cara presses on. “It won’t stretch far, but it might be enough to get you and your girl off planet if things ever go bad here.”
Relationships: Cara Dune/Omera (Star Wars), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 175





	1. Tether

With a few hours before dust-off, Cara borrows the common house proprietor’s speeder. She follows the lowering sun through the trees until the familiar clearing opens before her. No sooner does she kill the engine than Winta runs up. 

“Cara! Did you see the ship?” 

“What ship?” 

She’s never been much of a liar, and the girl sees right through her. “The _ship_. You know every time someone lands, don’t you?” 

“I sure do.” It’s why she stayed. Sometimes she can talk the newcomers into a friendly competition. Sometimes she gets close enough to swipe their tracker fobs, and she crushes them under one terribly clumsy foot, with many apologetic rounds of spotchka on her tab after. Sometimes that earns her an ambush on her way home, but it’s worth it. 

In the end, all of them learn. Cara was here first. 

“Then you know--” Winta starts, but she stops when Cara puts both hands on her shoulders and stoops to look her in the eye. “They’re not coming,” she says in a small voice. 

Cara shakes her head, and bears silent witness to the girl’s effort at putting on a brave face. It’s not her who’s breaking Winta’s heart, but she still feels like a jerk. 

She has no place offering a hug, and when Winta backs away from her touch, Cara doesn’t hold on. “And you’re leaving,” Winta accuses. Way too perceptive. 

Cara looks at the nearest pond. “Just for a little while.” 

“Sure.” Winta’s voice is hard. She turns back toward the village, hiding her face. “Bye, Cara.” 

Okay, maybe it is her who’s breaking Winta’s heart. But she’ll get over it. They all do. 

Cara straightens up and shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, Omera approaches, setting aside a half-woven basket. “Hello, stranger.” 

“Hi.” Cara musters a smile. “I promise I didn’t just come here to make your kid cry.” 

“That’s nice to hear. Are you staying for dinner?” 

“Not this time. I need a favor. Will you hold on to these for me?” 

Omera takes the bag Cara gives her, and hefts the weight of several hundred credits. “This is all from your… sport?” 

“Tetherbrawl,” Cara supplies. 

Her lips quirk upward at the corners. “Tetherbrawl.” 

“It’s also most of what the village scraped together. I want you to have it, if I don’t make it back.” Omera’s eyes fix on her at once, but Cara presses on. “It won’t stretch far, but it might be enough to get you and your girl off planet if things ever go bad here.” 

“Does this have anything to do with the  _ Razor Crest _ flying over this morning?” 

Cara owes him an earful for setting his landing vector over the village. “Yeah.” 

Omera nods. They are neither of them strangers to grim realities and bad odds. “Then I should wish you good hunting.” 

“Can’t hurt,” Cara says. And because she has nothing else to offer and Omera deserves more, she adds, “When I come back here, I’ll make sure he’s with me.” 

Hope can be a cruel thing to live with. Omera could hardly be blamed for not wanting this one, not when Cara said “if” only a moment ago. “He made his choice,” she says without bitterness in her voice, only sadness in her eyes. It’s barely been a month. 

“Things are gonna look different for him, once this is done.” 

“That doesn’t mean he’ll show his face,” Omera says. 

“If he offered you everything else, would that really matter?”

The yearning in Omera’s expression is so blatant, Cara can hardly face it. “Don’t make a promise for someone else.” 

Cara should stamp out the hope, same way she did for Winta, but she can’t. She’s weak, and she can’t. 

“Then I promise to drag him back by his cape if I have to,” she says. 

Omera smiles, and puts her arms around Cara. She has a lean strength to her. Her hair brushes Cara’s cheek, soft and fragrant. 

“This is for you,” Omera says, squeezing her tight. “And this is for him.” She presses a kiss to the corner of Cara’s mouth. 

For a second, Cara’s knees might fail her. “I am not giving that to him,” she says, and the words come out a little louder and more breathless than she intends. 

“You keep it, then,” says Omera, “and bring it back someday.” She releases Cara. “Good hunting.” 

“Thank you.” Cara looks on the village for what could be the last time, and she nods once more to Omera, who deserves more and better than a fistful of credits and a cheap farewell. 

Cara  _ will _ give her more, someday. She gets back in the speeder, and she leaves Omera to wait. 


	2. Promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous prompter asked, "i was wondering if we could see mando/omera/cara's first time?" and it fit so perfectly with what I had already written in the first chapter, I couldn't resist making this story longer. 
> 
> A whole lot longer. 
> 
> I'm so sorry for all the leadup to your extremely simple request, Anon.

It’s a while in the doing, but it is done. 

“So where would you be comfortable?” Cara asks, on the flight back to Sorgan. 

“I haven’t thought about it,” says the Mandalorian. 

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, I know you’re lying, but that’s a great reason to think about it now. It has to be dark, right? And no offense, but this ship isn’t an option. So, there’s the barn. Pros: familiar, and no one else lives there. Cons: it’s a barn.” 

“Even in the middle of the night, it’s too light in the barn.” His voice is tight and he faces resolutely toward the console, but at least he’s participating. 

“Noted. I figure that rules out Omera’s house too. It’s not like you want to be doing that where the other farmers can hear. Not the first time, at least.” 

“I’ll be quiet.” 

“Mm-hmm, I don’t doubt that. Omera strikes me as the loud type though.” 

IG-11 appears in the cockpit door. “I am removing the child from this conversation,” it announces, even though the child is asleep in his carrier and they haven’t said anything genuinely dirty yet, but the Mandalorian only waves the droid on. 

When they’re gone Cara continues, “The woods are darker than the village. You got some kind of lightproof tent?” 

He glances at her over his shoulder. “You do?” she presses. “Did you buy it recently?” He turns away from her grin, back toward the blue-white field of hyperspace. 

“Camping it is,” Cara says. “Someplace nice and remote. If you want to play it real safe, the second moon sets a couple hours before dawn. That’s a good window to shoot for.” 

“How much time have you spent thinking about this, Dune?” 

“Somebody had to,” she protests. “These things require a tactical mind.” 

He shakes his head. “Your whole plan hangs on an assumption.” 

“No it doesn’t.” She puts her hand on his pauldron. “I promise you, Mando, we will get you laid.” 

He sighs. “Tell me again what you discussed with her.” 

Cara leans back in her seat. “Gave her all my money. Told her, buy some pretty clothes.” She flicks imaginary dust off her boot. “I said the next time she saw me, you’d be with me.” 

“And she said?” 

“Not to make promises for someone else. So I promised I’ll drag you there by the cape if I have to.” 

“Cute,” he deadpans. 

“Meant every word. You’re not crapping out, not after what we went through to get to this point.” 

“We did it for the kid.” 

“I know. You getting to bed down with a beautiful young widow is just a bonus! Why aren’t you enjoying the prospect?” 

His voice goes all tight again. “Because nothing she said indicated that she wants me.” 

“Yes it did, all right?” Cara chases his gaze, reflected in the canopy. “I asked her, if you offered her everything except the sight of your face, would she take it? And the look she gave me--kriff, Mando, it _hurt._ I can only assume it’s the same look you get when you think about her.” 

“That’s your interpretation.” 

Oh, he’s infuriating. “You want to interpret something? How about this? She hugged me, and she said it was for me, and then she _kissed_ me and she said it was for you.” 

He turns, and he stares at her. “When were you going to tell me that?” 

“I don’t know, now? I can’t exactly deliver it like she wanted, when your helmet’s on all the time.” 

“She kissed you,” he echoes, like he’s trying to picture it. 

“That’s supposed to be encouraging for you. Felt like a pretty clear sign.” 

“What else did it feel like?” 

She throws up her hands. “Nice. Soft. There were lips, and they were pretty close to my lips. It was fun--you should try it.” 

Sometimes she still dreams about it, and the dreams go further. Far enough that she wakes up tasting Omera’s mouth, or at least what her subconscious thinks it would taste like. Sometimes she thinks about what it would be like to bring Omera to climax, and see the approval in her eyes after. 

“You have a preference for women.” 

It’s sweet that he noticed. “Doesn’t matter. I recognize a prior claim.” 

He winces. “She’s not scrap metal.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that!” How she hates being on the back foot with him.

He glances away, mercifully. When he speaks again, his voice is softer. “We can’t plan anything yet. Not until we know what Omera actually wants.” 

“Ambiguity isn’t a bad thing,” Cara insists, but he’s shaking his head, stubborn. She slouches. “How is that conversation supposed to go, exactly?” 

“I’ll ask her.” 

“Practice now. Pretend I’m Omera.” 

His head tilts toward her, and she knows exactly what expression he has under all that steel, but Cara only nudges her voice slightly higher and breathier, and says, “Oh, you’re back! I’m so happy to see you.” 

“This is ridiculous,” he mutters. 

“Coming back to Sorgan is ridiculous, huh? Well, I only waited months for you, with nothing but my fingers for company--” 

“Start over.” He clears his throat. “Omera. I need to ask you something.” 

“Yes?” 

“I’ve been gone a while.” 

“Yes.” 

“And I wondered if, despite that, you might...” He angles his helmet down. “Take me as I am. It’s not conventional, and it’s not something most people would abide in the long run. I understand if you wouldn’t--” 

“I’ll take you, that’s for sure,” Cara says, pouring on the salaciousness, because if she lets him talk any longer he’ll talk himself right out of it again. 

“You don’t know that she’ll say that,” he persists. 

“All right, all right.” She goes back to her Omera-voice. “Can I consider it?” 

“Of course,” he says with a crisp nod. “Also, do you have any inclination to get into Cara’s pants?” 

Cara crosses her arms. “Now who’s not taking this seriously?” 

“You should be the one asking.” 

She will not step on that moment. “No. This isn’t about me--it’s about you and your kid finally being free of this mess, and it’s about you getting some happiness in your life.” 

“How would you ask, though?” 

“I wouldn’t!” He’s complicating something that could be so damn simple. Asking too many questions is the quickest way for a body to drive itself nuts. 

“Omera,” he says, and even as Cara gets back into character, she realizes he’s sitting wider, elbows on his knees, saying Omera’s name more casually. He’s coaching _her_ now? They ought to start a damn acting troupe. “Do you have a preference for women?” 

“Not me,” Cara declares. “I like ‘em tall, chrome, and masculine.” 

He returns to his customary posture. “Sometime you’ll have to ask.” 

Cara shakes her head. She has lived comfortably alongside many unanswered questions, and she can carry that one to her grave. 

* * *

It’s a long walk, but they manage to make it longer. First Cara tries to hang back, and then the Mandalorian drops behind her, and they jockey for last place that way for a few kilometers. 

Cara tries to shove him forward once, and he doesn’t take kindly to it, twisting out of her way and attempting to turn her momentum against her. 

Maybe she can knock some sense into him. She goes low and brings her shoulder up toward his sternum. That connects, and he lands hard on the ground, but before she can move in to pummel him he holds up a hand and points to where the droid and the kid are almost out of sight through the trees. Cara heaves a sigh and they both catch up. 

That, in the end, is what saves her. As the trees thin out and the village comes into view, she turns to IG-11. “Give me the kid.” 

“I do not experience physical fatigue the way organics do,” says the droid. “There is no need need to relieve me of this duty.” 

“Just hand him over,” Cara bites, and the droid does, and the Mandalorian peers at her, and the child babbles, and right on cue Winta barrels out of the village. 

Cara holds the kid higher. Winta runs into Cara’s gut, and Cara lets out an _oof_ and pretends that the girl’s force is what knocks her back a few steps. 

“You came back! You came back!” 

Cara says nothing at first, but then she realizes Winta isn’t talking to the kid, hasn’t even reached for him yet; she’s still hanging onto Cara. 

“Yeah,” Cara tries, “I promised, didn’t I?” She didn’t, technically. Winta only hugs her tighter. 

Omera is too dignified to run to them, but it’s a near thing. Still meters out, she catches Cara’s eye and beams at her. Cara puts on an I-told-you-so face. The Mandalorian is fixated on Omera, following her approach with his whole body. Cara watches Omera stop before him, and they start to speak, and Winta says, “Can I hold the little one?” 

“Of course,” Cara says. She gets down on the turf and passes Winta the kid. 

“Missed you,” Winta tells him softly. The kid reaches up to touch her face. 

Beyond her, Omera puts her hand on the Mandalorian’s arm, just above his vambrace, and draws him away a few steps. He bends his head to her. They look so right, a pang goes through Cara. She swallows it down. He kept the promise she made for him, and now they can both quit languishing. 

Cara watches the kids coo at each other. When she looks up again, Omera is on a trajectory like she has Cara’s tracker fob. Cara gets to her feet and dusts herself off, bracing for a lecture on how friends don’t let friends use themselves as bait in obvious traps. “Hey,” Omera says, getting into Cara’s personal space. “Did you bring me something back?” 

_Yeah,_ Cara is about to say, _that entire man_ \--but then she remembers. “Um. Yes?” 

Omera lifts her chin. Cara moves forward, haltingly, and places her lips on the soft and sun-warmed skin at the corner of Omera’s mouth. 

Omera turns her mouth toward Cara’s and leans into it. Her hands cup Cara’s face, and there’s no way this enthusiasm is all for Cara. Some of it has to be months of loneliness after getting so close to him, and the continued frustration of having to wait hours before she can do this with him. Cara is just the temporary beneficiary, and she ought to stop overthinking and just enjoy it. 

“Mom!” Winta gasps, and Cara breaks the kiss. Winta is covering the kid’s eyes. Cara holds her breath and bites her lip hard, because if she starts laughing now, she might not be able to stop. 

“Winta, sweetheart,” says Omera, her hands still on Cara’s face, “sometimes three people all love each other, and that’s just the way it is.” 

Cara follows them across the clearing, and she’s almost recovered from the kiss by the time the words sink in and cause her to trip on nothing. The Mandalorian looks back to check on her, and Cara stares at him until it’s awkward, and then she signals that she’s okay, and keeps her eyes on the ground. 

\- - - 

At sundown, they leave the kids with the droid, and walk into the woods with blankets rolled on their backs. Both moons are high yet. 

The farther they go, the giddier Cara gets. Like being spotchka-drunk, but she didn’t have any with dinner. She clings to Omera’s hand and laughs at every stone that rises in the dark to trip her. 

Eventually they find a hollow, so deep it’s practically a cave, trees crowding out the sky. The Mandalorian leaves them there and goes to make sure there isn’t a grinjer den or the like nearby. Cara whispers at the shell of Omera’s ear. “Scared?” 

“No,” Omera says through a shiver. 

They shouldn’t start without him, before the moons set, but Omera just smells so _good._ Cara takes a handful of her hair, gently, and tilts Omera’s head back to get at the graceful length of her throat. Omera’s pulse flutters under Cara’s lips. 

“Everything clear?” Cara asks after a minute. 

“Clear,” the Mandalorian confirms, his voice rough. Omera startles--too distracted by Cara to notice when he came back, or how long he’s been standing there. Cara grins against her neck. 

They get the blankets unrolled, one on top of another. The ground here is soft and loamy, and when Cara stretches out on her back, it gives a little beneath her. She ditches her gauntlets and stares up at the few stars visible through the trees, and it’s easy to imagine herself floating. 

Anticipation turns Omera’s gentle laughs into giggles that well up in response to just about anything, and compete with the nightbirds for noise. Cara finds it both absurd and contagious, like they’re all fifteen or twenty years younger, new and fumbling. Still clothed, legs tangled together, talking about krill to forestall the urge to touch each other. 

“We forgot the tent,” Cara realizes. 

“It’ll be dark enough,” he says. 

“How much longer?” Omera laments. 

Cara sighs. “Only one way to console a widow.” 

Omera’s affronted gasp becomes a giggle again. “Crude!” 

“Just being realistic about the objective. You’ve got an itch, he wants to scratch it, and if he fails to satisfy, that’s why I’m here.” 

“No,” Omera says. Her hand finds Cara’s face. “No, that’s not why.” 

Cara turns toward her, ready to get lost in her lips again. 

Then, a small sound. Easy to miss if she wasn’t listening for it. One breath in, unfiltered. “I guess the moons are down,” Cara tells Omera. 

“Guess so,” Omera whispers. 

“Hey,” Cara says to the Mandalorian, “I almost forgot. I had something important for you.” 

“Yeah?” His voice is soft, without the hollowness of the helmet. It sounds somehow more real, like he is physically present in a way he wasn’t before, which is ridiculous, but she can’t shake the idea. 

She gets up and moves around Omera, finds his shoulder, and navigates herself into kneeling over where he is sitting up. “Yeah.” She leans toward him, but her lips find his ear. 

“Oh good,” he says while Cara fails to stifle a laugh, “you really can’t see anything.” 

She tries to sit back, but his knees are raised behind her and there’s nowhere to go. She’s laughing hard now, and Omera is giggling again, and then his bare hand settles at the back of Cara’s neck. His lips cover hers, gentle, and Cara stills at once. 

Omera makes an inquiring sound, and Cara makes an answering one. The Mandalorian lets go of her, but he stays at her lower lip. “Was that it?” 

“Yeah,” Cara says. 

“Okay.” He works a finger under her collar, trying to find a clasp. “Can we...” 

Cara snorts. He still has twenty-five kilos of steel on him, but he’s trying to get her naked. “Start with yourself,” she advises, and gets back to her feet. 

But of course, the instant she’s off him, Omera is there. Cara takes off her collar while listening to them kiss, over the occasional thump of beskar segments hitting the ground. 

The night air is cool enough to raise bumps on her skin when she gets her shirt and pants off, and steps out of her boots. She follows their increasingly frantic breathing and sits behind him, pressing against his back for warmth. 

He jolts, letting out a breath. Cara smoothes a hand down his side, but that just makes him shiver. 

Well. This will be fun. 

She puts her legs on either side of him, pleased that he’s already stripped down, and presses her mouth against the scratchy stubble on his jaw. “Get Omera’s dress off,” she whispers. 

He groans and reaches to where Omera is waiting. Cara cards her fingers into his surprisingly fluffy hair. She runs her other hand down his arm, all scars and lean muscle, and he pauses in his motion to huff an almost-laugh. 

How long has it been since he bared his skin to natural air, let alone anyone else’s touch? His layers seem coarse and heavy, liable to build calluses, or at least numb the nerves over time. Cara’s hands aren’t soft, not by a long shot, but if he responds like this to her, Omera will have him over the edge in seconds. 

Fabric lands somewhere near Cara’s foot; she feels the air it displaces. Feels, too, when Omera plants her knee between Cara’s foot and the Mandalorian’s hip.

“Wait,” he says, with hardly any voice left. “I have--” He paws at the pile of canvas and beskar, finds something, tears the packaging open, puts it on himself. 

“I’m glad at least one of us thought of that,” Omera says through a smile. 

She arranges herself, knees bracketing him, and Cara stretches her legs out for counterbalance when he leans on her chest. “I’ve got you, Mando,” she says in his ear, and a tremor goes through his shoulders. 

And then Omera must be on him, because he strains back against Cara and makes a desperate sound. Omera runs her hand over Cara’s where it’s in his hair, and tilts his head onto Cara’s shoulder to kiss him. He takes short shallow breaths through his nose, and moans into Omera’s mouth. 

Omera rocks, and if Cara were to angle her own hips a little more to press herself to him, this could go well for her too, but she dedicates her focus to being the immovable object to Omera’s unstoppable force.

The Mandalorian’s back is rigid against her. Cara gets one hand under his arm and up to his chest. His heart pounds under her palm. Cara curls her fingers, and drags her nails across his skin. 

He twists away from Omera’s mouth, panting. “I can’t--I can’t--” 

“That’s all right,” Omera soothes. Cara feels her pet his hair. “Let go.” 

He does, at length, quaking between them and gasping again and again.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezes pitifully once he’s spent. 

Omera stops him with another kiss. “Don’t even think about feeling guilty for that,” she says. 

Cara presses her brow to the back of his neck, and he shivers again. “Next time I’ll last longer,” he promises. 

“You just need practice,” Cara tells him. A lot of practice. A lot of touch, when they’re not all naked. A lot of nights without sex, unfortunately, but with the two of them beside him, to acclimate. 

She eases him carefully down to the blankets, and pauses when Omera uses her shoulder for support get off of him. Seems like she wasn’t far off about her role for the evening. “Why don’t you lie down, little lady?” 

“Who, me?” says Omera. “Suppose I do. You have a mind to take advantage of a defenseless widow in the woods at night?” 

Hardly defenseless. Still, Cara files this scenario away for later, if that’s how Omera likes to process the uncertainties of placing her life and body in someone else’s hands. They came to her as strangers, after all, and dangerous ones, and she made trusting look so easy. “Won’t take anything you don’t give,” she says. 

Omera finds her hand. “Have it all,” she says. 

Cara lays her down too. She’d like to see this, but she’s imagined plenty already, dreamed more than a few details, and she can feel what she can’t see. The weight of Omera’s breast against Cara’s palm. The softness of her belly, the sharp angle of her shoulders, the length of her arms. The grace in her hands. The warmth of her breath on Cara’s face. 

The heat of her, on Cara’s fingers. The soft hair against her hand, wet from riding him moments ago. 

“Hey,” she says, getting up on one elbow, because the Mandalorian hasn’t stopped panting. “Put your helmet on, yeah?” 

“I’m fine,” he lies. 

“Just do it,” Cara tells him. Listening to him hyperventilate will kill the mood for everyone. He draws a few more ragged gasps, and then grunts in irritation, and does as he’s bid. His breath evens out almost immediately. 

Omera relaxes too, losing tension she probably didn’t realize she was holding. Cara leans down to kiss her. She vees her fingers between Omera’s folds, bringing them together around her clit. Omera opens up to her, knees parting. How many years since anyone did this for her, and Cara gets to be the first? Life is, sometimes, a marvelous thing. 

“I wish I could see you,” Cara tells her. And then she shuts her eyes tight, because a light comes on, painfully bright after the near total darkness. She blinks into it at the Mandalorian’s indistinct shape. He has a headlamp on his helmet. “Okay then,” she says. She gives him a crooked smile, and turns back to her work. 

Omera gazes up at her, dark eyes profound and deep and so full of trust that it cuts. Everything else is washed out in the light, robbed of color, but those _eyes._ She reaches up from where her fists were balled in the blanket, and tucks Cara’s hair behind her ear, lets her hand linger on Cara’s face, thumb against Cara’s lower lip. Cara is rooted--she can’t even bring herself to look at the rest of her. Omera raises one knee and rolls her hips, and her eyelids flutter as Cara’s fingertips cross the whole of her cunt, slick and wanting. 

The hollow plunges back into darkness as the Mandalorian tosses his helmet aside and crowds against Omera. “Oh,” she whimpers, and then an _mmf_ into his mouth, and then “ _oh_ ,” when Cara slips a finger into her, and then her core goes taut and her back arches, and Cara’s sense of accomplishment is a heady thing. 

Cara takes her hand away when Omera is through the aftershocks, and holds it up close to his face. He seizes her wrist, puts his mouth around her finger, and cleans it off. If she’s honest, it’s a waste of his tongue. 

She leans over to find Omera’s breast, and puts her lips around her nipple, and Omera cries out and pulls Cara up by the hair to kiss her instead. Cara laughs against her lips. 

“Who’s next?” she says, knowing full well it’s her, and not a moment too soon. 

The Mandalorian gets an arm around her waist, and she lets him pull her across Omera and into the warm space between them, on her side with him at her back. He has one arm over her and the other hand in her hair, a mirror of how she held him before. Cara reaches back with one arm across his waist, and up with the other to grab the blanket. 

Omera turns to face her. Her touch is slow and searching. Her palms glide on Cara’s skin like--like she’s something to be treasured, memorized. She runs them across Cara’s shoulders and down her arms and over her breasts, and Cara arches into her hand but Omera is already moving farther down, to Cara’s hips and around them, where she digs her fingertips into one of Cara’s few soft places. The Mandalorian pushes his hips forward at the same time, and Cara abruptly understands that they are going to take her thoroughly apart and leave her in tiny, useless pieces. 

“Please,” she mewls. 

“Was that… begging?” 

She wants to tell him to shut up, but all that comes out is another tremulous “Please.” 

Omera strokes down over Cara’s thighs, drawing one up to rest at Omera’s waist. She follows it with her hand, down the back of Cara’s knee, along her calf to the sole of her foot, and Cara flinches back but he pushes her forward again. Damn them. She loves them. 

Omera’s hand sweeps back up to the inside of Cara’s thigh--yes, finally--and she puts her thumb firmly on the exact spot where Cara needs it. And she does not move. 

“Omera,” Cara whines, louder than she means to. 

“Cara,” Omera says sweetly. The knuckles of her other hand slide up Cara’s thigh and she turns her hand so her palm is over her other thumb, and one finger rests lightly at Cara’s entrance. 

Cara’s hips stutter, but Omera’s hands only follow them, with no purchase. “You’re gonna break me,” she gasps. 

“Not you,” Omera promises. “You’re sturdier than that.” 

She feels him move then, lifting one knee to rest between her thighs, right under Omera’s hands. 

“Please,” Cara says, “please. Please.” 

“Go on,” Omera says. 

Cara moves, down and forward, and Omera’s finger curls into her, and her thumb presses, and Cara has the leeway here to grind, but she won’t, she won’t hurt Omera’s hands, she will exercise control. It won’t take much, the way they’ve worked her up. 

She moves, and Omera places a second finger beside the first, and Cara groans and rests her head against Omera’s collarbone. Omera kisses the top of her head. 

She moves, and she’ll get there on her own in a matter of seconds, she can feel it building. Then the Mandalorian thrusts his hips, and Cara cries out, and he does it again and she clenches up and buries her face in Omera’s chest against a climax so bright inside her eyelids, she almost expects the dark afterward to be permanent. 

Omera takes her hands away as Cara shakes, and sets them on Cara’s face, thumbing away tears she didn’t realize were there. “That was very good,” Omera praises. 

“Understatement,” Cara mumbles. Omera huffs a laugh and puts her arms around both of them. The Mandalorian lets out a sigh, into Cara’s hair. Nightbirds sing them to sleep. 

\- - - 

She wakes much too soon, still tangled with Omera, dawn blushing through the trees. Cara turns to look, then remembers herself and reaches behind instead. The blanket is cool. 

“I’m up,” he says. Cara finds him back in his beskar, gathering their clothes. “There’s a river, half a klick north.” 

“Sounds cold.” 

“It was. Refreshing, though.” He has a point. They didn’t pack any caf, much less a way to prepare it, and they got maybe an hour of rest. It will be a long walk back. 

She accepts her bundle of clothes from him and puts on her boots, and only her boots. On her way up and out of the hollow she makes sure her hips sway a little extra. 

Cara finds the river: wide, shallow, and slow-moving, just where he said. She dips a toe, says kriff it, and dunks herself under all at once. When she comes up gasping and fully awake, Omera watches from up the bank, wearing a blanket and an amused smile. 

“Water’s great,” Cara lies. 

“Better with company, I’ll bet.” 

Cara comes out to get her, and Omera lets the blanket fall, and at last Cara gets to see what she dreamed and imagined, and it is very good. She holds Omera close and goes back into the water a step at a time, until they stand in it up to their shoulders, teeth chattering. “I can warm you up,” Cara offers. 

There is a lovely flush on Omera’s cheeks. “Thought we were here to wash.” 

“Get clean after we get dirty again?” 

“Start me off like that and I’ll be thinking about it all day long.” 

Cara buries her face in Omera’s hair. “Promise?” 

Omera kisses her. 

Warmer already, Cara says, “Did you know he’s sitting up there behind a tree right now? He saw us both naked last night but now he’s not even looking.” 

“It’s called being respectful,” comes his voice. 

It would, she supposes, be rude to get each other off with him unable to participate. So Cara washes, and dries off with the blanket, and dresses, all without touching Omera the way she would like to touch Omera every waking moment until she dies. 

Omera seems to want to take her time drying and dressing, but the cold compels her to hurry. Cara doesn’t pretend to not watch. When they’re both ready she hikes up the bank and nudges the Mandalorian’s side. He reaches up to pat her hip, and stands. Cara hoists one of the blankets he packed up, as well as the unfolded one they used to dry off, so Omera can walk unburdened. 

They skirt the hollow on the walk back. “You logged the coordinates?” Cara says. 

He taps his helmet. A tactical mind. 

“And you brought that tent to the village?” 

“I’m not moving into a tent,” Omera tells them. 

“No one said that,” Cara says, offering a grin that may land on the wrong side of the line that separates reassuring from lascivious. “We can adapt, right?” 

“We can adapt,” says the Mandalorian, and Cara can see in Omera’s eyes that she’ll hold them to that promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was originally going to be a one-shot, but while I was partway through writing it, I received an anonymous prompt that dovetailed perfectly with what I had planned. The second chapter will be much longer. Also smuttier. 
> 
> The title is from Hozier's "Shrike". 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at @hauntedfalcon, and you can send me OT3 prompts there.


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